The Wild Knight and Other Poems/The Desecraters

by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Witness all: that unrepenting,
  Feathers flying, music high,
I go down to death unshaken
  By your mean philosophy.

For your wages, take my body,
  That at least to you I leave;
Set the sulky plumes upon it,
  Bid the grinning mummers grieve.

Stand in silence: steep your raiment
  In the night that hath no star;
Don the mortal dress of devils,
  Blacker than their spirits are.

Since ye may not, of your mercy,
  Ere I lie on such a hearse,
Hurl me to the living jackals
  God hath built for sepulchres.